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Exploring Program Effects on Life Sciences Faculty Diversity: Assessing the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships for Minorities--Connie L. McNeely and Christine O’Brien
Exploring Program Effects on Life Sciences Faculty Diversity: Assessing the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships for Minorities--Connie L. McNeely and Christine O’Brien
Pages 89-98
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From page 89... ...
The Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships for Minorities were established in an effort to increase the presence of underrepresented ethnic and racial groups in the professoriate in the United States. To increase academic diversity and enrich tertiary curricula and participation nationwide, postdoctoral fellowships were offered to academically promising individuals claiming primary ethnic or racial identification with groups reflecting long-standing and severe underrepresentation on the faculties of U.S.
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From page 90... ...
THE POSTDOCTORAL PROGRAM Although the focus here is on postdoctoral awards, the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships for Minorities also included awards at the predoctoral and dissertation levels of graduate study, all aimed at the ultimate goal of increasing the presence of underrepresented groups in the U.S. professoriate.
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From page 91... ...
The Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowships for Minorities were "full-service" awards, providing direct and indirect resources for academic success in addition to basic financial support. These resources included paid expenses to attend conferences of Ford fellows and a wide 1The last year in which awards were made under the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for Minorities Program was 2004.
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From page 92... ...
is a crucial consideration in assessing outcomes for these postdoctoral fellows. A highly simplified typical progression might entail, for example, initial hiring as a tenure-tracked assistant professor, promotion to associate professor with tenure,3 and tenured full professor.
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From page 93... ...
These are issues for investigation in assessing fellowship outcomes. Related to career progression is the multidimensional nature of success, encompassing various evaluative and qualitative aspects of academic employment in direct and indirect terms and which may or may not be affected by a postdoctoral fellowship award.
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From page 94... ...
ASSESSMENT APPROACH Given the progressive and multidimensional nature of success, determining the impact of the foundation's postdoctoral fellowships for minorities must necessarily turn on a broad range of information and accounts of fellowship awards and recipients. In addition to basic information on the number of fellowships awarded and the disciplinary fields in which they were awarded, and the relative numbers and proportions of fellowship awards to individuals in each eligible underrepresented group, further information is needed on fellowship recipient educational background and attainment, their fellowship experience, and their professional trajectories and development.
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From page 95... ...
Seeking answers to several questions that will provide data for determining the impact of the program, the self-administered General Survey, distributed online and via regular mail to 115 fellows who received postdoctoral awards during the 1980–2004 period,7 has been designed to capture fundamental data on fellowship recipients, for example, • their educational backgrounds, trajectories, and outcomes; • demographic profiles; • doctorate disciplinary fields; • career paths, expectations, and outcomes; 6A survey of predoctoral and dissertation fellowship recipients was also conducted. 7A total of 2,088 surveys have been distributed to predoctoral, dissertation, and postdoctoral fellowship recipients.
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From page 96... ...
Thus, a wide variety of tables and figures presenting frequency distributions and central tendencies, variation, and other relevant information will be produced as basic analytical offerings in terms of: • the number of fellowships awarded; • the number and relative proportions of fellowship awards in specific disciplinary fields; • the number and relative proportions of fellowship awards to individuals in each eligible underrepresented group; • the number and relative proportions of fellows who have (or have not) assumed careers in academia; • number of fellows in faculty positions relative to specific disciplinary fields, departments, and universities; • number of fellows holding tenured faculty positions relative to
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From page 97... ...
Overall, these comparisons will allow for a more detailed and contextualized depiction of Ford fellowship recipient outcomes and relative success for evaluation purposes. CONCLUDING COMMENTS The General Survey of Ford Foundation Fellowships for Minorities recipients will provide a basis for conducting surveys and tracking all Ford fellowship recipients and for evaluating and comparing various programs and related changes over time.
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From page 98... ...
2003. 20th Anniversary Minorities in Higher Education Annual Status Report, 2002–2003.
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